PM_heatWeight 0.6.6 for Maya (maya script)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

I'd like to distribute versions of the executables that are tagged properly - unfortunately, I don't have a OSX / Linux machine that I can upload from at the moment - so if someone could send me a zip that has the proper executable bits set, I would appreciate it!

DESCRIPTION:------------This is an auto-weighting script for attaching a joint skeleton to a poly meshskin. It acts as a front-end to Ilya Baran & Jovan Popovic's "Pinocchio"auto-rigging and weighting library. (see https://www.mit.edu/~ibaran/autorig/).Specifically, it uses their heat-weighting algorithm (also implemented inBlender) to provide MUCH better default weights than Maya's bind skin weights.

Currently, since it interface's to a Pinocchio executable, it is onlyavailable on windows, intel-based Mac OSX, and Linux. The source for building thebinary is available at:https://github.com/elrond79/Pinocchio/tree/master... if you want to try compiling a binary for another system.(Note - the source has only very minor modifications from that released by Ilya andJovan.)

If if you do not already have a 'userSetup.py' (NOTE- the ending is .py, NOT .mel!!!) in the above folder, copy in the provided one - otherwise, open it and add it's contents to the end of the existing userSetup.py (NOTE: On windows, use notepad or wordpad, NOT microsoft word!)

Step 3: Create a shelf icon With maya closed, copy: /prefs/icons/heatWeight.xpm into your maya icons folder: .../maya/[VERSION]/prefs/icons/heatWeight.xpm Also, copy: /prefs/shelves/shelf_heatWeight.mel into your shelves folder: .../maya/[VERSION]/prefs/shelves/shelf_heatWeight.mel (When you start maya, you may drag the shelf button to another shelf with the middle mouse button, and then delete the 'heatWeight' shelf, if so desired.)

USAGE:------Select the root of the skeleton you wish to weight to and the meshes you wishto weight to the skeleton, then click the shelf button; wait a few moments forthe script to finish, and you're done.

Note that the method this works by weighting to bones, rather than joints.This means that: a) End joints (joints with no child joints) are never weighted b) A vertex may not be weighted to the 'closest' joint, if there is a 'closer' BONEKeep this in mind when laying out your skeleton, if you intend to weight itusing this script.

You may also invoke the script from a python command-line / script editor, foradditional options:

>>> import PM_heatWeight; PM_heatWeight.heatWeight()

For full details on the additional options available, do:

>>> import PM_heatWeight; help(PM_heatWeight.heatWeight)

ALL HAIL TO:------------Most of the credit for this working as nicely as it does goes to Ilya Baran &Jovan Popovic, who published the algorithm / developed / released the sourcecode for the Pinocchio auto-rigging / weighting utility, which this scriptmakes use of!

New releases will be posted to creativecrash.com (formerly highend3d.com): go tohttps://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/character/c/pm-heatweight...or search for 'PM_heatWeight' in the maya downloads if that link is outdated);if you wish to contact me regarding this script, either leave a message on theforum there, or email me at heatWeight DOT calin79, domain neverbox DOT com.(If you're not a spam bot, you should hopefully be able to figure out thecorrect formatting of that email address...)